


Guides

by kronette



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Episode: s03e23 Sentinel Too, Episode: s04e01 Sentinel Too, Spirit Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kronette/pseuds/kronette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair Sandburg pushed the hair from his eyes and took in the jungle that surrounded him.  Trees were brown and fallen.  Not a thing stirred, not even the air.  It was a dead forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guides

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted 1999 under my other pseud, Shelley Wright. I wrote this long before Sentinel, Too, part 2 aired. It's technically my first Sentinel story.

Blair Sandburg pushed the hair from his eyes and took in the jungle that surrounded him. Trees were brown and fallen. Not a thing stirred, not even the air. It was a dead forest; Blair had seen enough of them in South America and Africa. 

"Hello? Is -- anyone here?" he called softly, some part of himself not wanting to disturb the eerie quiet. 

A footfall behind him startled him. He whipped his head around and raised his hands. "Whoa --! I'm not going to hurt you," he assured the painted warrior standing proudly with staff in hand. "I just want to know where I am." 

"Where do you want to be, Shaman?" The words were oddly shaped somehow, and Blair turned to the new visitor. 

"Incacha!" 

"Shaman of the Great City," the Chopec Shaman answered reverently. He asked again, "Where do you want to be?"

Blair relaxed in Incacha's presence and forgot the warrior next to the Shaman. "Right now, I would _love_ to be in my bed catching up on sleep." Blair's joking manner faded as realization kicked in. "But I don't have a bed anymore. I don't have a - home." He choked on the word. 

There was a low growl/keen from the jungle and Blair worriedly searched the trees. "What was that?" he whispered. 

Incacha offered no answers. He pointed to the east instead and said, "Go." 

"Go? But there are like, wild animals out there. What if they ..." 

"Go," Incacha snapped impatiently. 

Blair went. Where he was going, he didn't know. He carefully shoved sagging branches and leaves out of his path. He ducked under a low-lying branch and froze. Before him stood a jaguar. Sleek, black, and intense eyes focused on him. He blinked. The jaguar's eyes were blue. "Wha -?" he breathed. Where in the hell was he? 

The jaguar loped off to the left, Blair's eyes on him the entire time. He carefully lifted his leg to step, but the jaguar growled disapprovingly, and Blair immediately put his foot down. How had he known the jaguar was upset? He cocked his head and studied the big cat. As he watched the jaguar pace back and forth, Blair's fear dissolved. Why on earth he would feel safe with a predator cat stalking back and forth in front of him, he couldn't say. He just _knew_ he was safe. 

Safe. The word and feeling warmed him unlike anything he had ever felt. It was the one, overpowering thing he had felt since the day Jim had let him move in. A heavy weight settled on his shoulders and he sank to his haunches, head bowed. "I don't have that anymore. Not only have I lost my home, I've lost my best friend as well." 

The jaguar whimpered. 

Blair looked up to see the great cat had moved closer, off to his right. The jaguar looked behind him, then back at Blair. They it raised a paw and started off through the trees. 

Blair stared after the cat wide-eyed. He heard it whimper again, and Blair was following in a heartbeat. He followed an unseen path through the trees, not quite sure what he was doing, but somehow knowing he was doing it right. He pushed his way through a wall of fauna and stood at the edge of a clearing.

"Okay, Mr. Jaguar, where did you go?" he whispered. The trees here were decayed, old and black. The air was heavy and smelled sour. The silence was oppressive. 

A wolf lay bleeding in front of him. 

"Oh, man," Blair breathed, his heart aching for the animal. Soft, pained whimpers emanated from the wounded wolf, and Blair found himself on his knees, hands not quite daring to touch the blood-matted fur. There were no actual wounds that Blair could see; just a lot of blood, tremors, and a lot of low whimpers. "I don't know how to help you," he whispered to the wild animal, feeling helpless. 

As Blair lamented on what sort of medicines he could possibly make out of the plants around him, he became aware of eyes on him. He wasn't surprised to find the jaguar peering at him through a clump of bushes. 

"You led me here. How am I supposed to help him?" he asked the jaguar impatiently, realizing how stupid it looked to be asking any animal questions. 

The jaguar slowly inched forward until it lay at the wolf's side. The wolf's tremors and whimpers immediately quieted. Blair blinked in surprise. Everything he'd ever read about wild animals said these two would _not_ get along, but here they were, the jaguar comforting the wolf. This couldn't be real. 

"Where am I?" he called to the jungle, but the eerie silence continued. "I want to get out of here! I want to go ..." he almost said home, but the word caught in his throat. He had no home to go to. Jim had kicked him out. 

The jaguar growled, startling Blair. The big cat was on his feet, pacing Around the wolf. Blair fell backwards, scratching his palms on the dead foliage beneath him. "What'd I say? Huh?" 

The jaguar pierce him with his blue gaze, and Blair got the heebie jeebies. He'd seen those eyes before. They were the exact color of...

"No way," he whispered. But he could almost see Jim's face reflected in the cat's eyes. Something clicked for him then...Jim's spirit guide. What if this was the spirit plane? Would that mean that he...? 

"No," he whispered. It started coming back to him. Alex. The gun. The short walk to the fountain. "No," he said more forcefully. The pain shooting through his skull where Alex cracked him with the butt of the gun. He raised his face to the sky and shouted, "No! I can't be dead! I won't be dead! Jim needs me!" He stumbled to his feet and screamed, "Jim!" 

The lone word echoed around the still jungle, no answer forthcoming. A sudden, terrible ache started in his chest. He clutched the front of his shirt and choked. "No," he rasped as he fell to his knees. His eyesight started to fade and a bolt of pure panic drove him to his side. "No," he repeated stubbornly. He tossed his gaze about, latching onto anything ...

The jaguar sat back on his haunches, regarding him. One paw rested on the wolf's wound, though the blood still flowed. The wolf's eyes stared back at him...the same color as ....no, could it be? If the jaguar was Jim, then could the wolf be...

"Me?" he questioned weakly. The wolf let out a low growl in answer. "You're me. And you're dying. No, no, no," he chanted. Another stab of pain had him curled up in a tight ball. His eyes pleaded with the jaguar. "Please, you're trying to help him. Is Jim trying to help me? _Can_ he help me?" 

In answer, the jaguar leaned over and started to calmly lick the wolf's wound. "Yes! I knew he could." The pain was increasing, and Blair was now gasping for each breath. "Why am I feeling worse? What's wrong?" He coughed, a tickling in his lungs telling him something was drastically wrong. "No, I won't die," he murmured before he was sucked down into a great white light. 

He saw the jaguar running toward the wolf...toward him...leaping into the air...he felt the wolf leave the ground...himself leaving the ground... something that can only be described as energy filling him...then he puked up his guts onto the lawn outside Rainier University. 

"Sandburg!" Jim Ellison breathed as his hands caressed Blair's face. 

He felt like his insides were being ripped out, and the noise around him was terrible. His entire body was freezing and burning at the same time, and through the haze of pain, he just made out his partner. Jim's face was stoic as always, though in his eyes, Blair saw the confusion, the pain, the apology and the promise all at once. He tried to smile weakly, but the paramedics placed an oxygen mask on him, and he lost sight of Jim. 

He heard the jaguar's low growl, this time with an answering snarl, and knew the wolf was back on his feet. How soon _he_ recovered, and where, would be decided later. All he knew was, he and Jim needed to talk, first and foremost, about Guides, both spirit and human. 

The end


End file.
